


The Rebound

by foldedchip



Category: Adventure Time
Genre: Episode: s05e21 The Suitor, Exes, F/F, LGBTQ Themes, Latin, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Princess Bubblegum and Peppermint Butler are really lesbian/gay solidarity huh?, Royalty, There's A Tag For That, Useless Lesbian Vampire, Yeahhhh, You know what?, im such a perfectionist and, just forget that and post the fanfiction, look this was sitting on my google drive for 200 years so I’m gonna post it, theres a tag for that too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:33:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29014398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foldedchip/pseuds/foldedchip
Summary: What do you do when your dictator friend rejects her suitors? Call back an old flame.
Relationships: Marceline & Peppermint Butler, Princess Bubblegum & Peppermint Butler, Princess Bubblegum/Marceline
Comments: 2
Kudos: 48





	The Rebound

**Author's Note:**

> Call this a Hallmark movie or whatever you want, I wanted shipping trash so I made shipping trash. But I mostly wanted Bubblegum and Peppermint content because they’re the brOTP

In a sweltering fireplace crackled a row of low flames, which warmed Bubblegum’s office in the late hours of the night. Her desk sat under a sea of papers and files, and Bonnie was a ship ripping through the thrashing waters to no avail. She cradled her aching head in one of her hands and yawned through her paperwork.

The sounds of the flames and the scratching of Bonnie’s pen scraped through what would have been silence, that is, until the door to the office creaked open.

“Your highness...” Peppermint’s squeaky voice wouldn’t usually have grated against Bonnie’s nerves. It did, however, when she anticipated what was sure to be a dreaded conversation.

She loosened her grip on her pen and stopped writing. “What, Peps?” When she looked up she might have startled at the pain in his face if she didn’t know it was sympathy.

“We need to…”

“The suitors. Yeah.”

He wrung his hands together, “I’m truly sorry. I don’t want to do this, I know you hate it.”

Bonnibel bristled, “Peppermint, how many times have I asked you to stop bringing it up? Suitorship is a horrible idea. You remember what happened with Braco…”

“Princess…”

“-So I don’t understand why you keep coming back with this, it’s not going to happen. It’s my decision and it’s final!” She snatched her pen back up and continued her scribbling.

Pep frowned. “Are you afraid of getting distracted?”

“Yes.”

“Then hire someone to help you with the work.”

Her pen froze on the paper and her gaze whipped to give him a childish glare, “I’m the only one around here that knows what I’m doing in terms of running the kingdom. That wax-brain just donked it all up for me to fix, and in case you haven’t noticed, it’s still not better!”

“Perhaps a partner who knows what he’s doing could help you.” Pep suggested.

She scoffed, “It’s as if I need another princess around here.”

Peppermint trotted closer to her desk and settled his arms across the surface, which required him to stand on the tips of his toes. The way the fancy suit fabric bunched around his small arms cooled Bubblegum’s temper. “I could arrange something like that...”

Bubblegum subconsciously slid some of the paperwork out of her way. “What do you mean? Really?”

Pep nodded as well as he could in his position, “Absolutely. After all, another unmarried princess could be a great move for the kingdom.” He chuckled, “And a request of the like would grant me reason to liberate those dead batteries in the hallway.”

Bubblegum clenched her pen and pulled her work back.

“Would you be more interested in female suitors, Bonnie?”

Bubblegum had tried that before, but Marceline was an utter failure. She’d neglected her responsibilities until it all came crashing down on her, and then what had she done? She’d broken Marceline’s heart and demanded her to stay away from her kingdom. If she wasn’t spending the night in her lab, she was having nightmares, and how many of those nightmares Marceline crept into was something she’d never tell.

Bonnie sighed, “It’s not really the gender of the suitors that has me so reluctant...”

“Bonnie, the only things I seek in life are ways to make you happy.” That and a scary boyfriend, Peppermint mused, But I must choose my battles. “I do believe this is something that will not only make you happy, but improve your life.”

He glanced lovingly at her goopy candy hair and resisted the urge to tuck it behind her ear, “You understand: get rid of the sleepless nights,” he gestured to her mid-night setup, “And the paranoia,” he tapped a gloved finger on the document she was writing, “And the needlessly stubborn attitude toward my loving stewardship.”

“That’s what you wanna call it?”

He pleaded, “Please let me try. All I want is to see you happy…”

Bubblegum sighed. The last time he’d picked her a date, he’d just dragged over the first male he saw and personally thought was cute. Peppermint Butler was a great friend to her, but how could she possibly rely on his judgement for something like this? After all, this was the guy who cursed Braco to become irresistibly handsome in an attempt to snag the attention of ever-uninterested Bonnie, only to fall for the man in her place.

But what if that was part of the problem? If he looked for a girlfriend for her, he would be forced to look outside his own preferences and interests, and the only think about what traits would be beneficial and appealing to her. If she was going to let him find her a date- stress the “if”- he was going to fail if she sent him to look for a boyfriend, but she didn’t know what would happen if he tried to find her a girlfriend.

But whether he failed or succeeded, she would get something she wanted.

“Peps, you may find me a suitor.” She patted him on the head.

He lit up with disbelief and pushed himself off the desk. “Y-you won’t be disappointed!” His voice cracked, but not any more than usual.

Bubblegum rolled her eyes and clicked her tongue, “Get outta here, Peps. You’ve got the rest of the night off.”

He hesitated when he reached the doorway, then turned around. “We’re still doing laser-tagging on Friday, right?”

Bubblegum looked up from her work and her expression softened. “Yeah, and then the trampoline park.”

Peppermint smiled and left for the night.

* * *

Peppermint snuggled his little face into his scarf and drove one of the back castle doors open with his shoulder. Snowflakes tumbled through the crack he’d opened and freezing air hit him with a chill. His boots squeaked and struggled against the slippery ground. Gritting his teeth, he shoved the door through the accumulated snow on the doorstep.

The door swung open and Peppermint stumbled into the darkness. He shivered and grumbled into the warm fabric of his scarf and coat, “Quaerite ilia frigidius est anima mea…”

To his relief, Pep suddenly found himself shielded by an ink-black parasol.

“Credo,” A sultry, feminine voice chuckled, “Scio vester manus sunt cruento.”

Pep turned in the direction of his associate and found she was kneeling in the snow with her parasol to her back, sheltering both of them from the biting cold. Even in snow like this, despite wearing her stylish ripped jeans, Peppermint knew she could hardly feel the sting.

He smiled, and his breath puffed out in front of his face as he spoke, “I should have expected you to know Latin. I habitually think out loud, it’s the only use I have for the language. That, or… Well...”

The woman scoured Peppermint’s face for some hint of what happened inside. “How did it go? What did she say?”

His red eyebrows popped up, and he pulled his scarf farther away from his face, “She accepted my proposal. I’m reeling...” It took restraint to keep his tone prim, but the excitement still dribbled through the cracks in his voice.

The woman’s face beamed with an eager smile, “Pep, you’re one heck of a butler!”

“Aw, thank you...” He smiled, folding his little gloved hands together with glee, “If I have to put up with Single Bonnie for one more year, I am going to explode. Two weeks ago, I saw her in her lab, and I think she was trying to make some sort of... Perfume... Out an old sweater of yours she’d found while cleaning out her closet. I can’t take it anymore. I give you all my thanks, your majesty.”

“Cut the formalities, dude,” she laughed, the tips of her sharp canines twinkling, “Call me Marceline.”

**Author's Note:**

> “My soul is colder than snow...” we love an edgelord  
> “I believe it,”  
> “I know your hands are bloodstained.”
> 
> Sorry for any Latin errors! I don’t speak the language but I’ve heard that its sentence structure is pretty flexible...
> 
> Thank you for reading, I plan to format and post another story tomorrow! Kudos and comments are always appreciated! Have a great day!


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